US is always a country of capitalists until the government nationalizes the banks and oil companies.
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99.99% of westerners have no idea what socialism is and just take whatever their authoritarian media has told them from their ears directly to their tongues.

I don't know why I am replying to your comment, but wtf
Do you mean 99.99% of US or are you just being your normal insulting self ?
We are well aware of socialism and its many failed approaches in Europe (Russia anyone?) and many 'westerners' have lived in other countries that were/say they are socialist (read dictatorship) that are often indistinguishable from their facist equivalents.

Looking at your recent posts, I assume you work for a certain authoritarian media and certainly have no understand at all about western media and just like annoying people - if it was so authoritarian, how come we can criticise it so easily, but many Asian media outlets are highly highly controlled

Do you mean 99.99% of US or are you just being your normal insulting self ?
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If an American is asked what kind of the system they have
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(1) a system of the people, by the people and for the people
(2) a system of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.
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I am quite sure that 50+% will select (1).
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But how on earth is a system of the rich democratic?
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of 300 million American people, I don't think even 100 thousands of them ever think of this question.
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Did you ever notice that almost all disasters caused by human under authoritarian system were under one-person dictatorship ? I bet you didn't, as you are not told.
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I guess you think this world is either 0 or 1, like your authoritarian media has told you.

I think you make an analytically-sound point in distinguishing between one-person dictatorship and authoritarian rule, even though they are often synonymous. I live in a western country, and can confirm for you that the media in my country (that I pay attention to, at least) spends little time justifying the Chinese governance model, so this distinction is not made.

I have seen your posts before referring to the "authoritarian media," and am always a bit confused. Perhaps you are confused about the definition of authoritarian (at least in the political context)? Are you suggesting the media is government-controlled, or is there some other way you classify it as authoritarian?

I think you make an analytically-sound point in distinguishing between one-person dictatorship and authoritarian rule, even though they are often synonymous. I live in a western country, and can confirm for you that the media in my country (that I pay attention to, at least) spends little time justifying the Chinese governance model, so this distinction is not made.

I have seen your posts before referring to the "authoritarian media," and am always a bit confused. Perhaps you are confused about the definition of authoritarian (at least in the political context)? Are you suggesting the media is government-controlled, or is there some other way you classify it as authoritarian?

"Did you ever notice that almost all disasters caused by human under authoritarian system were under one-person dictatorship ?"

The biggest "one-person dictatorship" in the world is the Catholic Church. The Pope's decisions can't be questioned as he is "infallible". Yet I don't see any Western leader criticise the Catholic Church as the largest dictatorship in the world. This is typical of Western double standards.

I strongly believe that one of the greatest contributions of Mao was to kick the Catholic Church out of China in 1950.

China needs a large government, how can you manage a population of 1 Billion people without one? I hope these reforms go over well and sometimes consolidation of government divisions can be a good thing.

South Korean consolidated it's Departments of Education and Technology and now they have a top 3 Public Education System that is incredibly advanced.

On the other hand, Smaller Government isn't always the best means to govern, as the Articles of Confederation(USA) and Somalia have showed us.

Eli Irving...I would usually agree with you if discussing other, more modern societies, but have you ever been to China? Have you ever worked there? If you have, then you'd know that keeping a population of over 1 billion people which is spread out across some fairly far-flung places is not exactly the type of situation that cries out for laissez faire-style self-government.

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This is not a call for bigger government; big government, too, has just as many if not more problems. However, most people outside of China must keep in mind that the society there for much of the past few thousand years lived under an emperor system and that has only undone beginning in 1911. This means that much of the society there still either blindly follows what the "emperor" (in this case these days, the Chinese Communist Party) says or else, when there is no emperor in charge, pretty much lives in chaos without any order or coordination. I guess the alternative would be that China is allowed to break up into smaller, more manageable entities. I doubt either most of the Chinese themselves or much of the rest of the world which is eagerly trying to get its products and services sold in that "one big market" would be agreeable to that, however.

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That is not to say that China cannot in the future be a smaller government-type of society. But expecting a still mostly developing nation of 1.5 billion people - of which a large portion still lives in poverty - to operate just like any other well-educated, advanced nation is expecting too much and fairly unrealistic. People can rule themselves, true; however, the level of education and other circumstances such as institutionalizing respect for property rights and others in the society do play a key determining factor in how successful an attempt at self-rule will be. Moreover, we sometimes forget that before there was government, there was often fairly violent chaos. Certainly it is romantic to think about the "good ol' days" when people lived on their farms and there was no need for government nor rules. However, larger, more mobile populations often require some sort of order. Unfortunately, such order does not spontaneously occur in such developing societies and it certainly does not come in societies that for a few thousand years were conditioned to do only as the emperor said.

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China's government size will shrink in time as the people there have more tools for self-government and a better understanding of themselves in relation to others in the society, not themselves in relation to the emperor. However, it will take time.

Well, I ultimately agree that democracy is not necessary for China; but I think you are engaging in some pretty heavy and inaccurate stereotyping of an ancient civilization with one of the richest histories of philosophical thought in the world.

The Chinese are already substantially better educated than the USA or most European countries were when they began the process of industrialization. China is better educated than most of the democracies in Latin America.
China is also among the safest countries in the world in terms of low homicide rates and the sort. Certainly safer than other developing countries or even the USA. So I don't think there is much of a problem with people respecting each other.

Far from blindly following the Emperor, the old Chinese saying goes "The mountains are high and the Emperor is far away." The Emperor never had any direct authority over common people, he never even had any contact with them. Traditionally, people might have considered themselves loyal to the Emperor but that didn't have much direct connection to their lives unless they were government officials. They never blindly followed the law either and they still don't. In Imperial times, China's legal system never thoroughly stretched down into the countryside and only intervened in extreme cases such as murder. Rather people conducted themselves through bonds of loyalty and local tradition held together through an upper stratum of law and bureaucracy.

As opposed to blind loyalty to the Emperor, traditional China can be understood in terms of a pyramid of hierarchical and reciprocal relationships. Children obeyed their parents. Tenant farmers obeyed their landlords. Workers obeyed their employers. Everyone obeyed the scholar-officials. The scholar-officials obeyed the Emperor. The other side of this was that superiors needed to provide protection, payment, or whatever other implicitly or explicitly agreed upon service to their underlings.

Chinese society is still basically structured this way except that now things are a lot more complicated. The question isn't "Can Chinese society be different?" The question is "Does Chinese society need to change?"

"On the other hand, Smaller Government isn't always the best means to govern, as the Articles of Confederation(USA) and Somalia have showed us."

So you believe that Somalia and the USA are similar in terms of their quality of higher education, education accessibility, median per capita income, scientific output, potential for success, corruption, equality, health outcomes, quality of infrastructure, etc.?

I love some of you left wingers who never miss an opportunity to knock smaller government no matter how ridiculous an argument you're making.

BurkeanPluralist, having lived and worked in China for more than two decades and having gotten an advanced university degree in Chinese history, I am not sure my comments are borne out of a desire to stereotype anyone. Indeed, China did for several centuries exist under a system that placed an emperor at the top of it, whether the rulers were ethnically Chinese, as in the Ming Dynasty, or not ethnically Chinese, as they were under Yuan dynastic or Manchu rule.
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True, the civilization has one of the richest histories of philosophical thought of any on earth; however, that does not allow one ti ignore the problems the society has had from time to time, particularly in the last century or two. Put another way, one could say that the US is one of the most advanced societies on earth; technologically, economically and given its excellent universities. That should not allow it to be excused from being known as one of the most violent societies given the number of gun-related and other weapon-related murders that far outpaces many of its advanced nation peers.
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As for the Chinese being already better educated than the US or most European nations when they began their process of industrialization, that is a bit misleading. Those latter societies began industrialization more than 150 years ago, when many of the trappings of modernity – electric power, automobiles, airplanes and computers – were only ideas in inventors' heads. True, that is not to minimize the incredible progress China and other emerging nations have achieved in the past few decades. However, it can be argued that achieving modernity these days cannot be compared in apple-to-apple fashion with what other nations had to go through more than a century ago. Their efforts then have helped pave the way in no small part to developed nation status being enjoyed by other nations around the world today.
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Finally, as for 'blindly following the emperor', old Chinese proverbs aside, it should be remembered that China went through a fairly vicious and bloody Cultural Revolution for about a decade, mostly brought about by people who were carrying out the whims of their then-leader, Mao Zedong. The chairman was not an emperor – at least not in name – but he certainly had built up a cult of personality no less tremendous than the kind maintained by previous emperors which Mao himself often scorned. And the violence was not limited to just the area around Beijing; it was carried out by zealous Red Guards as far away as Guangdong. Certainly, it is correct to say that the rule in Beijing during dynastic rule never thoroughly stretched down into China's countryside. However, to imply that places such as Guangzhou, Kunming or Xiamen did not follow any of the rules set forth by Beijing would be hard to argue. Also, while it is very true the family played a major role as being an authority in the daily lives of Chinese, that mindset of a powerful person above was reinforced by a system that placed the emperor at the top.
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Does Chinese society need to change? I guess that depends on who you ask in the society. I have met many people who are either Chinese or ethnically Chinese living outside of China and they say yes. I have also met many who say no. Not surprisingly, their answers are often related to where they stand on the ladder of power or wealth within the society. Given the amount of corruption that is being uncovered by the "ruling" party in China, I am not so sure the question should be "Does Chinese society need to change?" but should instead be, "How can it change?"